YouTube is no longer an untamed wild, full of viewers scrambling for media content. Now, viewers know what they want and make harsh decisions about which channels get their precious time.

That’s why everyone from aspiring celebrities to businesses looking to snag a few extra customers should use data analytics to assess the success of your social media campaigns. These are the 5 metrics that should be carefully watched over time.

Watch Time

Watch time is the sum of time viewers have actually spent with the video playing in their browser, not loading or waiting. YouTube places a lot of weight on watch time in its search algorithms to encourage creators to make content that keeps users watching their screens. Since more watch time also means more ads are displayed, watch time tends to scale to profitability.

Search Rankings

Exposure can make or break a YouTube channel’s popularity. Working to get your videos to the top of the searches for keywords relevant to your business is the end goal. Getting there is a complex process, but everyone can start at determining the keywords to track using search ranking metrics.

Views

The number of views and the way they fluctuate are a great way to determine what your overall exposure looks like. It works best when used alongside other metrics. Compare the number of views to the amount of watch time to determine how long each viewer spends on your videos. A higher view count is always better, but it’s also important to make the most of those views.

Subscriptions

Viewers who subscribe to a channel have the latest videos pushed in their notifications, making them more likely to return to build your view counts and total watch time. For channels with videos intended to be watched repeatedly, like music or children’s entertainment, each subscriber may represent a steady trickle of watch time on new videos which feeds back to older videos.

Viewer Engagement

Evoking a response from a viewer is a good way to get them to keep coming back. The most powerful viewer engagement data point is the ratio of likes to dislikes compared to the number of views. For example, a video with 5 likes and 24 dislikes may have it rough, but the implication changes if the video has had 40 views or 40,000 views. The first indicates a strong dislike, while the latter shows that viewers don’t feel very strongly about the video.

The comments section may also be used as a tool for gauging viewer interest. The content itself is important, but it’s hard to convert it into data points. The more tangible data point is the percentage of viewers that took the time to comment on the video.

The Measured Approach to Success

While these 5 metrics are absolutely vital to track. There are a number of others that help to create a clearer picture of your YouTube channel’s performance. The important thing is that you begin analyzing all the data your channel generates, so you compete in the modern world of creative media. Learn more about each metric and watch them change over time. They’ll let you know when you’re on the path to a successful channel.